5 ms·

I'd much rather the OS have a "report spam" button on notifications, and if more than 5% of app users report spam then the whole app gets all notifications bloc

I'd much rather the OS have a "report spam" button on notifications, and if more than 5% of app users report spam then the whole app gets all notifications blocked by default. Both Apple and Google have strong controls on the apps identity, so it won't be like email spam where the sender can just send from a new email address to get around the filter.

TylerE 3y ago
Seems like that would be a cheap way to destroy a competitor. Pay a bunch of people on some sketchy freelancer site to install the app, do whatever easily trigger notications.. and then report every single one. Sort of a spin in the concept that it’s much easier to create bullshit than debunk it.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  Why is this argument always used against any kind of improvement beneficial for the end user? Let's at least try to improve things before giving up.
  - twism 3y ago
    so many examples of this type of anti-competitive strategy already being used. why implement something with known deficiencies?
    - joshmanders 3y ago
      Because you're taking the solution to the absolute bare minimum implementation to achieve the desired result and then applying a ton of thoughts and considerations on how to get around THAT implementation and saying "Yeah this is gonna get abused" and throw your hands in the air. Or you could think just as hard about blocking it as you do about circumventing it, like in the case of this scenario, add weight to users. Obviously newly installed app users who are rating badly is a sign of something fishy, weigh their ratings a LOT lower than someone who has say many hours of usage in the app.
      - twism 3y ago
        i guess the solution in the comment i described as anticompetitive is solving a problem that really isn't a problem ... you have the ability to turn off notifications (or notification channels in the case of Android) if they seem spammy. why is the mothership turning off notifications for an app due to heuristics of a broad set of users. if i don't want the notification i'll disable/silence/mute/lower the priority of it either on installation of the app or when it starts to offend.
        joshmanders 3y ago
        Because there needs to be some kind of penalty for being a shitty person to your users. Like I get it, marketing matters a lot, and being able to market to your existing users is something that makes sure companies survive and I accept that. But because I find your app worthy of being on my phone doesn't mean I find your desire to constantly control what I'm looking at on my device or take away from that. And I think personally as the device manufacture its your job to safeguard YOUR customers too with the ability for them to report nefarious apps.
        satvikpendem 3y ago
        The penalty is they lose their privilege to notify you because you turn it off, thereby losing out on your future revenue through marketing to you via notifications. Again, the question is why must Apple or Google do something each person can decide to do themselves?
        joshmanders 3y ago
        Because some apps unfortunately are a necessity and we can't vote by removing them from our devices, but that doesn't mean we also decide to accept getting promotional notifications every hour on the hour from them because they take advantage of the fact that they're a necessity on our devices. And why must Apple or Google do something? Well because I can't make the iPhone or Android so I cannot change the underlining code to make sure that the notifications I need (delivery notifications) aren't drowned out or not received because I don't want the "We used a bunch of machine learning to determine this thing that you don't want is something you may want, you should add it to your cart!" notifications. "Eh just wholesale disable notifications" isn't always the best solution and the device manufacturer should be aware of that.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > why implement something with known deficiencies? That argument could equally be used to argue that push notifications shouldn't be implemented at all.
      - twism 3y ago
        push notifications and the ability to silence them is fine ... there's no issue to solve here other than the misconception that notifications can't be turned off per app basis unless the app store does it for you
        JohnFen 3y ago
        The issue here is that the abuse of push notifications makes push notifications borderline worthless. That's why I don't allow them at all on my machines. The value they provide is swamped out by the abuse of them.
        bavell 3y ago
        Yeah but it's on an app-by-app basis. Just disable push on the noisy/spammy ones and keep it on for well-behaved apps.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        It's easier to just disable them all by default, really, then I don't have to bother with micromanaging on an app-by-app basis. This is particularly true given that the majority of push notifications are spam.
        TylerE 3y ago
        The problem with off by default is that 99% of users will never even think that is something they can turn on.
        JohnFen 3y ago
  - pydry 3y ago
    Cynicism. It amuses me to think that some people probably believed that email would never go anywhere as a technology because spam.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Email was solidly established on the internet before email spam existed. The emergence and frowth of spam has greatly reduced how much people use email, though. It appears that spam is well on its way to effectively killing it. Marketers do seem to eventually kill anything they touch.
      - pydry 3y ago
        >Email was solidly established on the internet before email spam existed. No shit. The postal system was solidly established before postal spam existed too. Email spam's existence was anticipated though.
lozenge 3y ago
The wording of the notification is enough to train a spam filter and determine the urgency of the message. Both companies should be in favour - Google because the feature makes push notifications less useful compared to their ads, Apple for user experience.
tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago
Both operating systems already require opt in (at the system level) for applications to be able to send notifications. I think Android enforces this even for apps targeting older API levels, except you just get prompted for the permission when you open the app.
- joshmanders 3y ago
  The thing I have a problem with in this method is you're blanket opting in or out of notifications. I'd much rather have notifications bucketed into two systems. Transactional and marketing, just like email. I should be able to opt out of Amazon's marketing push notifications without ALSO opting out of getting delivery alerts.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    On Android, there are notification channels you can opt in to individually.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      How is this done? I couldn't find an explanation on a quick web search, nor could I find controls on my phone.
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079661?hl=en#zippy=%2Cturn-notifications-on-or-off-for-certain-apps https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079661?hl=en#zipp...
        JohnFen 3y ago
        Thanks! Sadly, my version of Android seems to lack these finer-grained controls. I got an OS update a couple of months ago, though. Perhaps these are newer than that?
- 3y ago
mixdup 3y ago
Neither platform owner is interested in solving this problem, they both abuse notifications for spam themselves
- IncandescentGas 3y ago
  Apps using repetitive junk push notifications to drive product addition has a side effect of driving smartphone addiction. Good luck expecting apple or google to curb smartphone addiction.
rideontime 3y ago
Too abusable. How about the platform owners actually pay people to enforce the existing guidelines?
braiamp 3y ago
A better solution would be that the OS forces app developers to separate in categories their push notifications and have in the notifications options which of those notifications would be enabled or not, how often and how frequent before a notification is presented. This would then be gathered by the OS as how many notifications were silenced and how often were they acted upon, then force that as default to all notifications. More importantly, there must not be a "important" flag or something that hints hierarchy. If a notification is important, describe that in the category description.

TylerE 3y ago

Seems like that would be a cheap way to destroy a competitor. Pay a bunch of people on some sketchy freelancer site to install the app, do whatever easily trigger notications.. and then report every single one. Sort of a spin in the concept that it’s much easier to create bullshit than debunk it.

carlosjobim 3y ago
Why is this argument always used against any kind of improvement beneficial for the end user? Let's at least try to improve things before giving up.
- twism 3y ago
  so many examples of this type of anti-competitive strategy already being used. why implement something with known deficiencies?
  - joshmanders 3y ago
    Because you're taking the solution to the absolute bare minimum implementation to achieve the desired result and then applying a ton of thoughts and considerations on how to get around THAT implementation and saying "Yeah this is gonna get abused" and throw your hands in the air. Or you could think just as hard about blocking it as you do about circumventing it, like in the case of this scenario, add weight to users. Obviously newly installed app users who are rating badly is a sign of something fishy, weigh their ratings a LOT lower than someone who has say many hours of usage in the app.
    - twism 3y ago
      i guess the solution in the comment i described as anticompetitive is solving a problem that really isn't a problem ... you have the ability to turn off notifications (or notification channels in the case of Android) if they seem spammy. why is the mothership turning off notifications for an app due to heuristics of a broad set of users. if i don't want the notification i'll disable/silence/mute/lower the priority of it either on installation of the app or when it starts to offend.
      - joshmanders 3y ago
        Because there needs to be some kind of penalty for being a shitty person to your users. Like I get it, marketing matters a lot, and being able to market to your existing users is something that makes sure companies survive and I accept that. But because I find your app worthy of being on my phone doesn't mean I find your desire to constantly control what I'm looking at on my device or take away from that. And I think personally as the device manufacture its your job to safeguard YOUR customers too with the ability for them to report nefarious apps.
        satvikpendem 3y ago
        The penalty is they lose their privilege to notify you because you turn it off, thereby losing out on your future revenue through marketing to you via notifications. Again, the question is why must Apple or Google do something each person can decide to do themselves?
        joshmanders 3y ago
        Because some apps unfortunately are a necessity and we can't vote by removing them from our devices, but that doesn't mean we also decide to accept getting promotional notifications every hour on the hour from them because they take advantage of the fact that they're a necessity on our devices. And why must Apple or Google do something? Well because I can't make the iPhone or Android so I cannot change the underlining code to make sure that the notifications I need (delivery notifications) aren't drowned out or not received because I don't want the "We used a bunch of machine learning to determine this thing that you don't want is something you may want, you should add it to your cart!" notifications. "Eh just wholesale disable notifications" isn't always the best solution and the device manufacturer should be aware of that.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > why implement something with known deficiencies? That argument could equally be used to argue that push notifications shouldn't be implemented at all.
    - twism 3y ago
      push notifications and the ability to silence them is fine ... there's no issue to solve here other than the misconception that notifications can't be turned off per app basis unless the app store does it for you
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        The issue here is that the abuse of push notifications makes push notifications borderline worthless. That's why I don't allow them at all on my machines. The value they provide is swamped out by the abuse of them.
        bavell 3y ago
        Yeah but it's on an app-by-app basis. Just disable push on the noisy/spammy ones and keep it on for well-behaved apps.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        It's easier to just disable them all by default, really, then I don't have to bother with micromanaging on an app-by-app basis. This is particularly true given that the majority of push notifications are spam.
        TylerE 3y ago
        The problem with off by default is that 99% of users will never even think that is something they can turn on.
        JohnFen 3y ago
- pydry 3y ago
  Cynicism. It amuses me to think that some people probably believed that email would never go anywhere as a technology because spam.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Email was solidly established on the internet before email spam existed. The emergence and frowth of spam has greatly reduced how much people use email, though. It appears that spam is well on its way to effectively killing it. Marketers do seem to eventually kill anything they touch.
    - pydry 3y ago
      >Email was solidly established on the internet before email spam existed. No shit. The postal system was solidly established before postal spam existed too. Email spam's existence was anticipated though.

lozenge 3y ago

The wording of the notification is enough to train a spam filter and determine the urgency of the message. Both companies should be in favour - Google because the feature makes push notifications less useful compared to their ads, Apple for user experience.

tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago

Both operating systems already require opt in (at the system level) for applications to be able to send notifications. I think Android enforces this even for apps targeting older API levels, except you just get prompted for the permission when you open the app.

joshmanders 3y ago
The thing I have a problem with in this method is you're blanket opting in or out of notifications. I'd much rather have notifications bucketed into two systems. Transactional and marketing, just like email. I should be able to opt out of Amazon's marketing push notifications without ALSO opting out of getting delivery alerts.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  On Android, there are notification channels you can opt in to individually.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    How is this done? I couldn't find an explanation on a quick web search, nor could I find controls on my phone.
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079661?hl=en#zippy=%2Cturn-notifications-on-or-off-for-certain-apps https://support.google.com/android/answer/9079661?hl=en#zipp...
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        Thanks! Sadly, my version of Android seems to lack these finer-grained controls. I got an OS update a couple of months ago, though. Perhaps these are newer than that?
3y ago

mixdup 3y ago

Neither platform owner is interested in solving this problem, they both abuse notifications for spam themselves

IncandescentGas 3y ago
Apps using repetitive junk push notifications to drive product addition has a side effect of driving smartphone addiction. Good luck expecting apple or google to curb smartphone addiction.

rideontime 3y ago

Too abusable. How about the platform owners actually pay people to enforce the existing guidelines?

braiamp 3y ago

A better solution would be that the OS forces app developers to separate in categories their push notifications and have in the notifications options which of those notifications would be enabled or not, how often and how frequent before a notification is presented. This would then be gathered by the OS as how many notifications were silenced and how often were they acted upon, then force that as default to all notifications. More importantly, there must not be a "important" flag or something that hints hierarchy. If a notification is important, describe that in the category description.